


Elegy

by dramatic owl (snarky_panda)



Category: Hey Arnold!
Genre: Afterlife, Community: ladiesbingo, Future Fic, Gen, Minor Character Death, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Sister-Sister Relationship, ladiesbingo prompt: remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 10:33:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13121937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snarky_panda/pseuds/dramatic%20owl
Summary: She could rest easy. Her daughters would be closer now and they would take care of each other. Per the prompt this is a remix of my storyIn Memoriam.





	Elegy

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [In Memoriam](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1057547) by [dramatic owl (snarky_panda)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snarky_panda/pseuds/dramatic%20owl). 



> Disclaimer: Not mine, just this story.

Miriam Pataki knew the old adage that people created their own hell. With her imminent death coming she’d decided to create her own heaven.

Life after the age of twenty-two brought little besides disappointment. A marriage that she regretted, a daughter from an unplanned pregnancy, another daughter from a second unplanned pregnancy ten years later when she thought she was done with all that. Her life passing her by in a haze of alcohol. In her last years, she’d mourned it every day.

Now, from this distant perspective, she could examine it all and let it go. She didn’t hate or resent Big Bob, not anymore, and she could even acknowledge that at one time she’d loved him. He hadn’t been the greatest husband and father, but he’d done his best to provide for his family in the best way he knew how. Miriam didn’t blame him for anything.

On the other hand, she didn’t want to spend eternity with him either.

Then there were the girls. With her gone, they would only have each other. She’d hoped that they would find common ground, that they would support each other, maybe even become close finally. It would be good for both of them, especially Olga, who was wound up way too tight. Helga was always very strong, thanks unfortunately to her and Big Bob’s neglect. She’d had to be self-sufficient and tough from a very young age. But Miriam had often worried about Olga. They’d put far too much pressure on her.

Miriam’s best memories were summers here at the Owl Creek Canyon Ranch, riding horses and training for the rodeo. When the news of terminal liver cancer came she set down her wishes in writing, legally, to be interred here. She’d had a superstitious hope that if her remains were in this place her spirit, her consciousness would follow.

Although she wasn’t actually corporeal anymore she had a sense of sitting on the low wooden fence encircling the paddock anyway, just the way she had in life. She watched her two daughters, so different from each other and so distant in age, giggling together, working together to spread her ashes along the circuit she rode those summers when she was a preteen. The night was cool and quiet and moonless, every star in the sky visible and bright. There was nowhere else on earth she loved as much as this place.

Olga and Helga climbed out of the paddock, carrying the rest of her ashes, and walked away from the ranch. Miriam knew they would spread what remained over at the Canyon River, honoring her full request.

The two girls sat on the hood of Olga’s car. She could see from her perch on the paddock fence that they weren’t talking, but they exchanged glances and smiles once in a while, understanding each other without speaking, just the way she could with her best girlfriends at one time before she was married, when she still had best girlfriends who understood her. When they finally slid off the hood and climbed into Olga’s car, Helga behind the wheel and Olga in the passenger seat, they were both laughing.

Everything inside settled and Miriam finally knew contentment. 


End file.
